


all this and heaven too

by sonatine



Series: born to strange sights [2]
Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Multi, everyone is poly and nothing hurts, howl gets his heart back and it's basically the equivalent of, news flash asshole i had feelings the whole goddamn time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: Howl gets his heart back. It's more than he bargained for.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirtybinary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtybinary/gifts).



> this month so far has been a blur, but i do remember yelling about howl and ben with [vale](http://dirtybinary.tumblr.com) a lot

Calcifer likes to compare it to breaking through Earth’s outer atmosphere, but he's being deliberately pretentious.

It feels like losing your footing on a soggy pier and crashing into the bitter sea. It feels like wedging open a moldy wood window frame, swelled shut after a humid rain, and getting a lungful of fresh air.

“You're so _Welsh_ when you're being sensational,” Ben says. The carriage jolts over a pothole; Howl is briefly pressed against Ben’s side, stern to aft. His fingertips go numb.

“Fine,” Howl says.

It feels like an eon of entombment in the cement basement of a library, pounding away at a rackety typewriter whose E key always sticks and then finally emerging above ground with a packet of _completed_ thesis notes.

“That's pandering,” says Ben, and calls out to the driver, “Here, thank you!”

Ben hustles him out of the carriage, to the backdrop of the driver’s protests, and tosses a gold coin behind him.

“You're going to make me _walk_ two blocks?” says Howl, outraged.

Ben pinches his nose. He looks tired and irritated but also fond.

“And how does the King expect us to manage our regular work _and_ make house calls on the side?” Howl absolutely does not sob. That would ruin his mascara, and it's a rather nice one that he picked up on his most recent jaunt to Wales.

“Welcome to government employment,” Ben says, dry as the plain prison-diet toast he actually chooses to eat every morning.

“Fuck off,” Howl says, deliberately pushing. “You've been a government drone since you landed here boots-down. Even when you were a scarecrow.”

“Would you please just relax for two seconds?” says Ben, climbing the shallow tile steps to the stately home’s porch. Everything he does is deliberate and weighty. A puff pastry would look grave in his hands. “If you know how,” he adds, and raps on the door with three concise knocks.

Howl would like nothing more than to imprint his handprint across Ben’s cheek just then.

* * *

The door opens and a small sniveling gentleman in grey serge glowers at them. “ _You're_ the Royal Wizard?”

His tone implies that they are far more likely to be sewer-dwelling rats.

Ben inclines his head.

“Royal _Wizards_ ,” Howl says grandly, with a sweep of burgundy silk sleeves.

The gentleman’s mouth twists.

“We've been waiting for hours,” he says.  “I shall be lodging my complaints to the King. I cannot believe Kingsmen are permitted to operate with such lax moral code.”

Howl opens his mouth to tell this weasel to kindly go fuck himself, but Ben says smoothly:

“Our apologies for the inconvenience. May we come in?”

The weasel shrugs and sniffs and _allows_ them breach the doorway. Howl deliberately tosses his perfumed hair into his face.

Howl’s outrage only sharpens when he discovers this weasel is merely the _butler._ The gentleman they've actually come to speak with about a blackmailing banshee is upstairs.

“We told him _two o’clock,_ ” Howl hisses into Ben’s ear as they climb the stairs. “He couldn't bother to read our reply?”

“Don’t make a fuss,” Ben whispers back.

“I wish you'd stand up for yourself once in awhile,” says Howl.

“I stand up when it matters. You, on the other hand,” Ben says, knocking obsequiously at the office door, “have made a lifetime career of cutting and running.”

 

* * *

The wind pulls the door shut behind him so forcibly that his nicest jacket gets caught and tears.

Howl turns to the sink to take his frustration out on the skull: but of course it's no longer there. It is now reattached to _Wizard Suliman’s_ body. Who is currently residing in the P2 district, in the palace’s backyard — with a lovely lady whom he loves very much, with whom he is probably cooking mussels and chips and laughing genteelly.

Howl has a lovely lady of his own upstairs, but it really grates him to not be _everyone’s_ favorite.

He's a rubbish bin.

* * *

It’s good exercise to climb through windows. It keeps Howl in hand, and also gives him an excuse to stretch when he forgets.

He is not counting on the extra alarm spells Ben has installed on apparently every entry point on his neat townhouse in the _P2, Palace District Two, darling, in the good school system._ Howl falls on his face onto the shag carpet.

“It's not shag,” Ben says, standing over him with a tired expression.

“It’s the Ingary equivalent of shag,” Howl mumbles into the floorboards. The spell is smushing his back downward and his face sideways. A majesty of a trick spell.

“I would never be so hip.”

“A truth universally acknowledged,” Howl snips, and Ben increases the pressure, incrementally, before finally letting him up.

“Is there a reason you're breaking into my house at half-two on a Tuesday,” says Ben, “or am I just special?”

Howl rolls into a sitting position. “Reason without reasonable cause is reason enough,” he pronounces, and Ben squints at him.

“Oh, Christ. You're drunk.”

“Am not,” says Howl, in a _dignified_ manner.

Ben runs a hand over his face. He pushes Howl into the kitchen and then down into a chair, and busies himself at the kettle.

“Where's Lettie?” Howl says. “I didn't wake her?” he adds hopefully.

Ben shoots him a curtained look.

“Lettie could sleep through her next life if left to her own devices. She likes you, by the way. She asked when the two of you can spar again.”

Howl accepts the mug of tea, pleased. Then grimaces; Ben never uses sugar.

“Does she?”

“Sure. She's not threatened by you.”

The pleasure disappears sharply.

“ _Meaning_?”

“Meaning your game for affection doesn't worry her. She knows you're part cat.”

“How dare you! If anything I’m part dragon,” he says, because his tongue is dulled by ale and they both devoured Tolkien that one summer when it rained every day for an entire month. The wires of his brain are a tangled mess of nostalgia and emotion.

Ben says dryly, “You could never hoard gold.”

Howl rockets to his feet, not unsteadily at all. That chair is just _broken_. “Gold is meant to be spent and people are meant to be appreciated. Otherwise what's the point?”

“Howl,” Ben sighs, and then again, “Howl, for christsake, just use the door,” when Howl starts to climb back out the window.

“Shan't, thank you,” says Howl, and lopes back out into the rain. His heart is a pounding mess of Ben and Lettie and Sophie, and the light filtering through Ben’s front window onto the cobblestones reminds him of Calcifer.

* * *

Howl comes home to the castle after three, no four turns of the lock — he can feel something lurking in the periphery, not a curse he doesn't think, but something to make him cover his tracks all the same — to find Lettie and Sophie sitting at the table with Michael.

The kitchen is a disaster. Flour and egg is smeared everywhere; Calcifer is no exception. He’s coughing  rings of white soot.

Lettie spots him first. “Howl!” she shouts.

Howl feels a surge of affection for her — for all of them — and rushes forward, swooping Lettie out of her chair and into a bear hug.

“Are you the architect of this madness?” he says, swinging her across his shoulder. She shrieks.

“I'll have you know it was _Sophie’s_ idea —”

Sophie cuts in, “Technically, it was Michael’s —”

“But _Calcifer_ said forty-five minutes,” Michael shouts over everyone.

Howl swoops Lettie back onto the ground. “Sophie didn't tell you about the rule of three?”

“That's for _elemental_ transfiguration,” Sophie says.

“And baking is what?”

“Hard,” Calcifer supplies.

Howl herds them to the hearth. Sophie and Lettie are arguing over proper breakdown of chemistry versus magic in kitchen situations. It's comforting.

“This is for Ben’s birthday, right?” Howl says. His hands are full of pink wisps, rather pretty, like Sophie’s hair sometimes in summer or Calcifer when he's concentrating.

“Hopefully,” Lettie says. “If we manage to bake it before his next one.”

Sophie covers Howl’s hands with her own and adds yellow to the meld.

“Raspberry?” Howl says in surprise.

Sophie goes pink, which means she's being thoughtful and is embarrassed about it.

“Victorian Sponge,” she says.

“Sophie asked Megan,” Lettie explains. She's concentrating on regulating the core temperature around Calcifer, so she doesn't see the expression on Howl’s face.

Howl draws Sophie close to him, close enough that he can feel her heartbeat as well as his own, as if they were sharing — like he and Calcifer used to.

* * *

Howl’s hair is splayed across the pillow, fanning around his head like delicate silk, but not as silky as Sophie’s, whose is falling across her shoulders as she moves above him.

He slides his hands up her waist and across her back, drawing his knees up and his legs closer, so that he's holding her in his lap.

Sophie mouths across his neck. Her breath blazes directly to his spine.

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes he can hear Ben’s voice — no, that's not it. Sometimes he can feel Ben’s feelings, or flashes of, and it's most often when Howl and Sophie are linked.

Howl doesn't dwell too deeply on this, but he supposes it has something to do with sharing a heart. The trickiest of magics, love is.

_Come on_ , he can feel Ben say, in that dry and sensible way of his. _Come for me, Howell_ , and Howl loses himself.

* * *

 

Howl’s hair is splayed across his back. It's longer now than it ever was at university. He likes the way it feels sliding across his shoulders when he’s riding Ben, and how it sticks to his neck, sweaty, as Ben’s thighs tremble beneath him.

The breeze slams a door shut downstairs; and bedroom door, to balance, flies open.

A streak of light from the hallway falls inside. Howl thinks of a grassy moor, inky night and with a rippling breeze, and starlight.

Howl’s ears are pounding. Ben looks very far away, and it sounds like he’s speaking under water.

Ben grabs Howl’s hand and squeezes. Howl feels Ben’s heartbeat pulsing against his own. His breath catches.

_Come on, then_ , he feels Sophie say. _It's all right. We’ve got you_.

Howl’s shoulders tighten and he grips Ben’s hand.

* * *

Howl is curled up in the armchair under the window in Ben’s home office. It's in attic on the third floor. The Suliman house is narrow and tall, like Jack Sprat who could eat no fat. Howl both loves and hates it.

The window is open to catch a hopeful breeze, but mostly it smells like burning summer asphalt and construction debris from next door.

Ben is scratching at some tedious reports for the king. Howl has long since given up the illusion of ever being a serious asset to the crown; the king had stopped expecting reports after the first fortnight of Howl’s appointment. He instead takes out ten percent of Howl’s salary every month, in order to pay the secretary he hired expressly to file the Wizard Pendragon’s paperwork. (Howl does not tell Sophie this. Howl definitely does not tell Michael this.)

In fact, Howl only prayed Ben would discover this on his own. The row would be enormous and wonderful. _How you manage to skate through life without doing even the bare minimum anyone else does —_

Howl never stopped to examine why quarrels with Megan drained him, but quarrels with Ben fueled him. Perhaps he shouldn't look too carefully.

“You could finish that page faster with the Karlovski  turn,” he says.

“I too studied under Mrs. Pentstemmon, Howl,” says Ben, not looking up. He methodically moves onto the next page of parchment. Howl’s going spare with boredom.

“Let me help!” he suggests brightly. “Then we can take off early and catch the barges on the canal.”

“Whatever for?” Ben says, bewildered.

“Justin’s birthday.”

“That's next week.”

“He's ordered a full seven days of festivities,” Howl explains, and Ben’s cheek twitches.

“No. And more importantly: no, you cannot help.”

“Your parchment is smoking,” says Howl.

Ben curses and stamps out the flames with his palm. “Damn it.” He glances guiltily to the open door. “Stop distracting me.”

“But I'm bored! And the doctor said a week. A _week_ , Ben.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Seven days! Seven whole days of sloth. I'll die. I'd rather die. Do you know what it feels like to be useless?”

Ben stares at him, dead eyed, from over his mountain of paperwork.

“I’d much rather be busy than bored,” Howl says. “Dark eye circles are the most attractive form of natural beauty.”

“You're full of it.”

“It means your mate is hardworking. It's only natural, Ben.”

“Please, do tell me more about reproductive biology.” Ben runs a hand through his hair. It's liberally streaked with grey now.

Howl worries about him. Ben has always worked too hard.

“You should ask the King to give your community management duties back to Justin,” Howl says. “Now that he's human again.”

“The King likes me to take care of it.”

“Along with your regular duties, extra clinic hours twice a fortnight, and appearances at diplomatic functions.”

“Don't forget my unborn child on the way,” says Ben.

“All I'm saying is: no one will think less of you if you sleep once in awhile.”

“Do you not remember our final dissertation year? I don't think I slept, ever.”

_But you're no longer nineteen. And with a family to care for besides._

“It'll all blow up in your face,” Howl says.

“Joke’s on you. I hate my face.”

Howl swats Ben’s quill out of his hand. The inkwell overturns in the process.

Ben gives him a look that says, _Are you happy with yourself?_

“You take that back! It's a perfectly serviceable face.”

“I never said it wasn't serviceable,” Ben says, calmly producing another quill from a hidden desk drawer. He mops up the ink with a spare rag.

Howl scowls and uses only a bit of help to clean the excess from the desk grooves.

“No magic,” Ben reminds him. “You're resting.”

“And you're devastatingly handsome.”

Ben snorts.

Howl leans himself against the desk in a way that shows off his legs very nicely. “ _Rugged_ , Sophie called you.”

“Some of us have work to do, Howell.”

Howl tilts Ben’s chin up. Ben’s glasses slide down his nose. He blinks up at Howl, slightly cross eyed.

“I could cut myself on your jawline,” Howl murmurs.

He's never forgotten the exact mix of hazel in Ben’s eyes, but that doesn't mean he ever tires of seeing it.

“Warning sign of hemophilia,” Ben says, and Howl chokes on a laugh.

Ben kisses like he solves problems: tentative, at first, assessing, and then throwing himself in full-bodied.

He tugs on Howl’s hair, hard, and Howl gasps, rooted to his mortal body only by the mooring of Ben’s hands.

* * *

Howl is waiting for Sophie in a straight-backed, uncomfortable kitchen chair and feeling very sorry for himself indeed. The mug of tea in his hands has gone cold. And it's too sugary.

“You should have drank it then,” says Calcifer. “Any time at all since you've been sitting here in the dark. For half an hour.”

“Everybody’s left me,” Howl says piteously.

“They've only been gone an afternoon.”

“Michael’s spending the night at the Sulimans’. For his interview at the palace tomorrow.”

“I know,” Calicer says.

“It makes sense to stay in Kingsbury. Rather than leaving early tomorrow morning.”

“Especially since the door has been so finicky lately.”

“It's _fine_ ,” Howl insists, but of course you can't argue with yourself. Howl always wondered just how much of himself he gave away to Calcifer in their exchange; and vice versa.

Calcifer shrugs his blue shoulders. “It'll sort itself out. This doesn't feel like a curse.”

“Does it feel like a blessing?” Howl snarks, just as the knob turns orange-down.

The door jams. There is a scuffle on the other side as the person jams their shoulder against it. Howl draws his blanket up to his neck.

The door bursts open in a flurry of wood shavings. Sophie steps through, murmuring apologetic and soothing phrases to the door. It mends itself, resentfully.

“You're back!” Howl cries, launching himself into her arms.

“I was barely gone,” Sophie says, but looks gratified all the same. Howl presses a kiss perfectly atop the lipstick marks on her neck. “Flower says hello.”

“Hello back,” Howl mumbles. His face is buried in the juncture of her neck and hair.

“Did you eat?”

Howl lifts a shoulder.

“He had some soup,” Calcifer snitches. “And a bite of bread. And stared down some tea.”

Howl shoots Calcifer his most devastating glare.

“The tea won,” Calcifer adds.

Sophie makes a noise that could be a laugh when it grew up; but it's hard to tell from his position inside her shawl.

“Let's order pizza from Wales and eat in bed,” she says. “We can use that telephone you invented last week. When you were supposed to be resting.”

“Stop screeching,” Calcifer complains. “You're a grown man.”

* * *

Howl flies into the Sulimans’ kitchen via the back alley entrance and flings himself against the closed door, chest heaving.

“Oh hello, Howl,” says Lettie.

She gets up from the table, baby on her hip. Howl should move to help her but a) she would rip his arms off if he tried and b) he doesn't think he could.

“Tea?” she offers, moving to the stove.

“No thank you,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Don't be silly,” she says briskly. “I was just making some. This little demon had us up at four and six. Because only a two a.m. feeding is for losers.”

“Morgan wakes up. Every ninety minutes,” Howl says. “Punctual to a fault.”

“Can't think where he gets it from.”

“Right?”

Howl just focuses on breathing for the time being. Then he pries his hands off the doorjamb and slides them into his silk pockets and tries to _pretend_ to be a person.

He sits down at table. “How was your day?”

“Stop it,” says Lettie. “What's the matter? You look like a curse is on your heels.”

Bile rises in Howl’s throat.

“ _Is_ there?” she says, alarmed.

“I don't _know,_ ” Howl wails. “There's _something_ there, always, to the side of me, but I can't tell _what.”_

“Since when?”

Howl lifts a shoulder.

“Since you got your heart back, then,” Lettie says. Howl flinches. “Oh. Is it weird to say out loud?”

“Don't know,” he mumbles, and clutches at his chest a little.

Lettie eyes him shrewdly. The kettle whistles, and she deposits the baby into a bassinet on the floor and fetches two cups from the cupboard she insisted on building by hand.

She sits down and pushes one in front of him, saying, “This thing — is it materialized?”

“What? I — no.”

She stirs three sugars into her mug. (Ben would gag.) “It’s always there, you say?”

“I mean. I wasn't paying attention but — yes, I guess.”

“You can see it?”

“ _No_ ,” he grits. “It's more of a feeling,” deeply aware of how insane he sounds.

“Hm,” Lettie says. She pushes the the day’s crossword toward him. “I can't get A2. What did Prince Justin wear for the High Norland Arts Gala three years ago?”

“Rose gold,” Howl says scornfully. “You were _born_ here.”

She pencils it in. “Fanny’s worried about me going back to work so soon.”

Howl stares at her. “So?”

“So what do you think I should tell her?”

“I assumed you told her to fuck off.”

“I did. I'm wondering what I should say now that she's hurt and not speaking to me.”

“You're asking me? I could count on one hand the days of my life that I _didn't_ row with Megan.”

The baby fusses. Lettie rocks the basinet with her foot.

“What's something the two of you always did together?” Howl asks.

“The two of us? Alone? Without dad or the girls?” Lettie snorts. “Nothing. Cooking. The accounts.”

A curl is escaping from her topknot and onto her neck. The weather’s been oddly humid lately. Howl tucks it back into place.

“She probably doesn't feel part of your life anymore,” he says. “But being a mother is something she can relate to. And now you're going and giving that up.”

Lettie stares at him. She drains the rest of her sugary concoction and makes a face.

“I hate it when she tries to bond,” she says. “She never cared that much about us when we were growing up.”

“I imagine,” says Howl, “that she was rather overwhelmed for a while.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Lettie watches Howl out of the corner of her eye as she says, “Are you feeling the thing right now?”

Howl startles.

“No,” he admits.

“When you do feel it — how are you feeling otherwise? Sad? Scared? Happy? Angry?”

“It — anything. It doesn't matter which. It's just a lot.”

Lettie blinks. Then she leans back in her chair. If she were a cat (and Howl suspects they both might be, if Ben and Sophie were dogs), she would be smugly preening.

“It _is_ a lot all at once, isn't,” she says. “Feeling things again.”

Now it's Howl’s turn to stare. “What's that got to do with it?”

“Nothing. Just feelings are overwhelming. Even small ones, if you're not used to feeling anything normally.”

Howl jolts to his feet.

“Don't get mad,” she says.

“I'm not!” he screams, and then cowers. It's back. It's _there_ , he can _feel_ it.

The baby starts to scream too. Howl clutches at his head and and at his chest. He's such garbage. What an asshole, barging into his sister-in-law’s house and making her play _therapist_ and waking the _baby_.

“I think I'm having a heart attack,” he gasps, because his lungs don't seem to be working.

“Oh, _Howl_ ,” she says. Her eyes are pitying. Howl can't stand it. “I'm calling Ben.”

He struggles with the door, around the pounding of his head. _“Don't call Ben!”_

He flees.

He stops at the stationer’s on the way home and scribbles a quick note. He finds enough postage floating around in his pockets — some of it might be Strangian — and stuffs it into a mailbox before he can feel bad about it.

* * *

“Howell!” Gareth says. His bushy eyebrows have become one with his hairline. “Are you — good lord, you're soaked.”

Howl sneezes. It’s always raining in this bloody country.

“You can — come in, I guess,” says Gareth. “Watch the carpet. Boots off.”

“I _have_ been here before.”

“Megan just cleaned, is all. The kids are asleep. Mind your voice. They'll be sad to have missed you.”

“Oh don't worry,” Howl says brightly, “I can see them in the morning.”

Gareth’s eyebrows knit further as he leads Howl through the dark narrow hallway and into the dark square sitting room. Megan is watching a game show on TV with no other ambient light. The thin blue matches his mood nicely.

“Howell,” Megan says. She doesn't stand. “You couldn't call before turning up?” and then like clockwork they're off and running.

* * *

Howl falls into an exhausted sleep, the specific kind produced by the post-quarrel drain, and sleeps straight through till morning.

The door bangs open.

Howl shoots to his feet, seeing witches, curses, mermaids, and scarecrows, but it's only Mari — seven now, and a tangle of knobby joints and too-big teeth.

There's a lot of incomprehensible shrieking in Welsh (Howl only ever had a passing knowledge of it, not that he'd ever let Ben know that) and then _did you bring it, did you bring me back a star like you promised?_

Which. Well. The last time he’d visited was at a low point; he'd been determined to save Sophie and Michael and Ben or die trying. The dying part had seemed more likely.

What does it say about a person who continuously fucks up when trying not to, but then solves problems largely by a chain of unintentional errors?

“Calcifer’s resting,” Howl tells her. “We’ve got a bit of a cold.”

“You're a _wizard,_ ” Mari says, outraged.

“Even wizards get sick sometimes.”

She is unimpressed. “So both of you take some medicine and then bring him to visit. I've never met a star before. You _promised._ ”

“I never specified when,” Howl says. He falls back into the rickety old sofa shoved in the attic, under the rafters. It cracks down the middle. He looks down at it, betrayed, and begins to cry.

“It's just rubbish, Uncle Howell,” Mari says, nonplussed, and pats his knee. “Neil’s broken way worse. He broke the back door last week. Mum went spare.”

Howl snorts. “I bet she just did,” and buries further under the dusty quilt.

Mari snuggles up beside him, which means Howl gets elbowed a lot and his ankle sat on. “Tell me more about Calcifer.”

“Mari.” He’s tired. He's very tired. “How about you tell me a story instead.”

Megan finds them like this two hours later. Aside from sleeping in (a sin) and generally being lazy (a cardinal sin), it transpires that Mari has been shirking all of her weekend chores.

Mari is deposited into the garden and Howl into the kitchen, scrubbing at dishes in his pajamas while Megan lays into him.

Yes. Perfect. Howl feels the regular dullness sweeping over him, the blank blissful fog that was always so easy. He plunges his arms deep down into the scalding dishwater and lets the bubbles soak up his sleeves.

* * *

Gareth sticks his head into the kitchen. “There's a bloke at the door for you, Howell.”

Howl’s head snaps up from the potatoes he was peeling. Megan’s face contorts in—worry? and then standard annoyance.

“You're receiving guests here already?” she says. “Just make yourself right at home.”

Ben sweeping through a palace entrance is a sight to behold. Ben filling up the entire doorjamb of Megan’s dim kitchen with the checkered curtains and humming radiator is baffling.

Howl has never seen Megan flummoxed before. It's nearly as incomprehensible.

“Ben Sullivan,” she says, mouth parted. Then, “You’re too important to bother coming to Mari’s christening last year?”

Ben says, “You couldn't bother to come up Cardiff and tell Howl in person that your dad died?”

The kitchen goes icy silent.

“ _Well_ ,” says Megan, finally, and Gareth murmurs, for once, “Let’s give them a minute,” and shuts the kitchen door behind them.

* * *

For the first time in his life, Howl doesn't know what to say. Surely getting his heart _back_ should have made him more charming, but he feels like all his sense of self has been plucked out along with it.

Maybe it had. Maybe it was a nonrefundable transaction.

“Fanny got the letter you sent her,” Ben says. “She came round last week. Lettie says thank you.”

“Have they made up now?”

“Sort of. Back to the status quo at least.”

Howl lifts a shoulder. Ben’s eyes catch on his roots. They must be dirt brown for at least an inch now. Howl hasn't bothered to charm it in ages. 

“I can't believe you made me traipse all the way back to Wales to come get you,” he says.

“Can't you?” Howl snaps. “That's what I do best, remember? Cut and run.”

Ben rubs the back of his neck. Howl realizes why he looks so strange; he's in jeans and a sweatshirt. He looks so — _relaxed_.

“I think half the reason you do,” Ben says irritably, turning to busy himself at Megan’s electric kettle, “is that someone will _have_ to come after you.”

“Not someone. You.”

Ben’s eyes flick over. His eyelashes are thick as smoke.

There’s a silence as the kettle bubbles. Howl picks at the hole in his shirt. He's been wearing Gareth’s old track pants and the same jumper for a week. The kettle screams. Out back, Mari screams too—probably (warranted) obscenities at Megan.

“It's really unfair, you know.” Ben pushes a mug of tea at Howl.

“No, thank you.”

“Don't be stupid.”

They sip in unison. Howl narrows his eyes. “Did you put something in here? And what's unfair?”

“That you still manage to throw off charm, even disguised as a chav.”

Howl snorts tea across the table. Ben demurely sips at his mug, his fucking pinkies even lifted.

“You're a shithead,” Howl tells him. He feels better than he has in a week and yet is _still_ on the verge of tears. Maybe he's permanently damaged himself.

“Lettie mentioned something to me,” Ben says cautiously. He lets Howl wipe surreptitious tears away without comment.

“I'm not surprised.” It feels for a minute that they're back in their university flat, sitting in the kitchen talking about everything and nothing until dawn. “I bet you've got something to say too.”

“I have.” Ben looks gentle and Howl almost can't stand it.

“What's wrong with me?” Howl asks, small.

Ben takes off his glasses and cleans them on his shirt. He looks like a professor about to tear a hypothesis to shreds, and Howl rocks right back into prepared fury.

“If giving your heart away was so devastating,” Ben says, “why on earth wouldn't getting it back be just as difficult?”

The table jolts sideways. Ben watches, unperturbed, as Howl stands above him, raging. A small hovering shadow has formed on the ceiling. Neither pay it any mind.

“I refuse to be condescended to in my own kitchen,” says Howl.

“Megan’s kitchen.”

“The kitchen of my brethren and forebears.”

Then his fury as gone as quick as it came. It's replaced by a heavy fatigue and Howl sinks back into his chair. Ben leans over and rummages through the drawer. He locates a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Howl stares, mouth dry. He never noticed, until this moment, that he's never seen the Ingary version of Ben with any kind of smoking paraphernalia. As if Ben Sullivan and Wizard Suliman really are two different stalks of the same root.

“You are human, Howl,” is all Ben says. The familiar cloud of smoke around his head is comforting.

“So are you,” Howl says.

“Sure and I forget sometimes too,” says Ben, O’Sullivan.

Howl grins, sharp.

“Thanks for coming after me.”

Ben shrugs and stubs out the cigarette.

“I don't think I know how to exist without you, honestly. You goddamned fool,” he adds, and it's that addendum that convinces Howl it's safe to return home.

* * *

The alert spells go off, and it's only because Sophie is abroad helping a clan of naiads that Howl has bothered to activate them at all. It's strange having Michael married and out of the house.

Ben crashes through the window onto the floor. It's the only time Howl has ever seen him look ungainly. It is extremely gratifying.

“I have a surfeit of doors, you know,” Howl says.

“Shut up,” says Ben and crawls into bed to spoon Howl. “And call off your sirens.”

“Shan’t,” says Howl sleepily, already lulled by the rhythm of Ben’s breathing. “It's evidence that you’re human too.”

“I always was,” says Ben, heart beating steadily against Howl’s back. 

**Author's Note:**

> re: howl and lettie sparring - magical only. howl avoids anything overly physical. when things break around the castle, he calls for sophie and then salivates over her strength and management of hammers, screwdrivers, drills, crowbars, etc
> 
> (you know how after an extended depression you get feelings back and instead of a gradual drizzle it's like a tsunami? 
> 
> really, who among us would expect howl to deal with Proper Feelings again in a healthy manner)
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr link](http://sonatine.tumblr.com/post/159583643734/all-this-and-heaven-too-howls-moving-castle)


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